Chapter 141: Fake! Way Too Fake!

Chapter 141: Fake! Way Too Fake!

Wu Chen wore his habitual faint smile. When he saw Li Maoren’s eyes come to him, he met them without a flicker.

Li Maoren had looked at him first simply to see what attitude the young man would take on meeting him. But the calmer Wu Chen was, the more convinced Li Maoren became that his daughter had arranged all of this in advance and drilled him beforehand. That composure was itself wrong.

This was how a young man behaved on being presented to his girlfriend’s father?

Fake at a glance.

“Call ahead?” Li Maoren turned to his daughter. “So you could get your preparations in order for dealing with me?” His face gave nothing away as he threw the question straight back at her.

Li Ruobing’s expression froze, and then she smiled—that willful, cold smile that said plainly, Talk if you want to talk; otherwise I’ll leave.

“Dad. A surprise attack? Didn’t we agree that until the date comes, you keep out of my business?” The date she meant was the settlement date of her wager with Ding Ruilong.

Father and daughter had gunpowder in their mouths from the first word.

Because the relationship had never been good to begin with.

Years ago Li Maoren had used his wife’s grave illness as a pretext to trick Li Ruobing into coming home, and then tried to force her into marriage. Several years had passed, and nothing between her and the family had ever thawed. Two years ago she would not even take his calls. These past two years she took them—and nearly every one ended in a quarrel.

“You can’t even look after your own brother, and now he’s landed himself in trouble this size, and you’re blaming me for coming to Donghai?” Li Maoren shot back.

“How is that on me? You—”

“Hey! Dad! Dad! Sis! Sis! Don’t argue, don’t argue.” Li Ruotai hurried over a few steps. “Don’t start the moment you set eyes on each other. It’s been over half a year. Come on, don’t argue…”

Li Ruobing glanced at her brother and could not be bothered to go on.

She tugged at Wu Chen and slipped her arm through his, that very fake smile returning to her face. She leaned into him, all intimacy, and introduced him to her father with great seriousness.

“Dad. Allow me to introduce him properly. This is my boyfriend, Wu Chen.”

Obviously calculated to needle him.

Without waiting for her father to react, she introduced Li Maoren to Wu Chen.

“Darling, this is my father. You can call him—well, he’s a few years older than your father, so Uncle will do for now. Once we’re married you can change how you address him.” Her voice was very soft when she spoke to Wu Chen, and the way she looked at him seemed full of love.

Talk of marriage, too?

Even faker.

Li Maoren had heard his own daughter tell him to his face that she would never marry—though the family wanted her married, married into the Ding family.

“Uncle. A pleasure to meet you,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

Li Maoren looked at him without expression. Then, just as the air was about to turn awkward, he actually stood and put out his hand.

Wu Chen extended his own, and the two shook.

By the etiquette of the thing, when elder and junior meet, the elder must offer his hand first; only then may the junior respond. For the younger man to reach out first would be improper, gracelessly so.

Which was why Wu Chen had not offered his hand first. Had Li Maoren declined to take it, Wu Chen would only have humiliated himself.

But even Li Ruobing had not expected her father to offer his hand to Wu Chen of his own accord.

He could be this cordial?

Where had the cordiality been a moment ago, when he was snapping at her?

Li Maoren had little choice. What else could he do? However formidable he was, he could not control his daughter. However badly they quarrelled, there would always be a day when things could mend. But if he went after Wu Chen now, his daughter would very likely turn on the spot, take the young man, and walk out.

And then there would be no conversation at all.

It was not that Li Maoren feared Wu Chen. He was simply afraid his daughter would lose her temper and leave.

He had come to expose his daughter’s fake-boyfriend performance, so the first thing was to get the two of them seated. There had to be a conversation. He had to break the deception open. Then he could have the word put about, and his daughter would no longer be able to keep the act running.

“Not bad, young man. You caught my Bingbing’s eye. You must be quite something, hm?” Li Maoren said as they shook hands, the words plainly carrying a second meaning.

“I do all right. Nowhere near your level, Uncle,” Wu Chen said, smiling.

“Sit.” Li Maoren gestured, and sat down first.

Wu Chen and Li Ruobing took the sofa opposite, close together, and Wu Chen crossed one leg over the other out of habit. Sitting like that in front of his girlfriend’s father was hardly proper. He looked entirely at ease, entirely casual.

Li Maoren was not annoyed. He found it almost funny. The more relaxed and offhand Wu Chen was, the faker he looked. The boy was overplaying it.

There was nothing Li Maoren wanted more than for Wu Chen to show him more flaws.

Li Ruobing noticed the crossed leg and thought it wrong as well. Her hand brushed lightly against the side of his leg, and she turned her head to give him a look: put it down.

Wu Chen glanced at her, looked away, and ignored her.

Li Maoren saw the whole exchange. His first thought was that Wu Chen did not obey his daughter. Could it be—? And then, a moment later, he dismissed it. Impossible. Given his daughter’s character, she would never choose a man who did not listen to her. If anything, it only proved the boy was fake. More acting.

Li Ruotai stayed standing off to the side. He had not sat down; he could not have sat still. He was even a little nervous—not for any other reason, but because he was afraid his sister and his father would start fighting again and wreck the place…

“Xiao Wu… how long have you and my Bingbing been together?” Li Maoren began.

“A few months. We met at a campus recruitment fair. Ruobing came to our university to recruit…” Wu Chen offered a detail or two, unhurried.

“Just graduated?”

“Yes. I’m working at Ruobing’s company at the moment.”

“What did you study?”

“Computer science. IT.”

It was like having his household registration checked: Li Maoren asked, Wu Chen answered.

And there was nothing wrong with that.

This was meeting the girlfriend’s father. A first meeting with the parents went exactly like this.

“IT is good. Technology moves fast these days, and everything runs through the internet. So what are your plans for the future, Xiao Wu?”

“For the time being… I’ll help Ruobing get her company listed.”

“Ha. Big words for a young man.” Li Maoren said it with a trace of a smile, because said without expression it would have sounded like mockery, and Li Ruobing would certainly have turned on him.

“By the way, Xiao Wu, there’s something I haven’t asked.” Li Maoren shifted the subject. “What does your family do?”

“They run a lamian shop.” Wu Chen kept his smile. “Small county town, small business.”

Li Maoren’s expression shifted slightly.

In truth he already knew all of it.

Li Ruotai had investigated Wu Chen’s ancestors eighteen generations back, so to speak, and Li Maoren had read the file.

He was asking questions he knew the answers to for one reason only: he was waiting for Wu Chen to lie. The moment Wu Chen lied, he would have his opening to turn hostile and expose him.

But—apart from the length of his relationship with Li Ruobing, which nobody could verify—Wu Chen told the truth about everything.

He did not mind in the least telling a man of Li Maoren’s standing that his family ran a lamian shop. That was his background. Plain and simple.

Li Maoren adjusted his approach.

“Your parents are in good health?”

“Quite good. Neither of them is even fifty yet. The year I sat the university entrance exam they both had full physicals. Nothing wrong.” Wu Chen really did speak to Li Maoren with easy composure, as though he felt no pressure at all.

“What does the lamian shop bring in a year? Enough to cover your expenses?”

“Plenty. I’m working now, so it’s just my parents and my younger sister at home. My sister’s university fees were set aside long ago. There’s nothing major going out…”

It had genuinely turned into the small talk of a first family visit.

But beside Wu Chen, Li Ruobing, and Li Ruotai off to the side, both looked ill at ease.

Li Ruobing especially.

She was in a quiet panic. Truly panicking.

She knew her father. The more he behaved like this, the more it meant he was in earnest. Under these conditions, one wrong sentence from Wu Chen—one flaw for her father to seize—and it would be over.

More than ten minutes later.

“Any hobbies, Xiao Wu?” Li Maoren was still asking in the tone of idle conversation.

“Sure. Plenty.” Wu Chen smiled. “Calligraphy, painting, music, kickboxing, firearms, cars…”

“Guns?” Li Maoren cut him off. “You know guns?”

He had found his flaw.

With Wu Chen’s family background, there was no possible way he had ever had access to a gun.

Li Ruobing’s face changed drastically as she turned to look at him. She could not understand how he could make a blunder this elementary.